Second week, last days in Slovakia and then off to the Ukranian Carpathians for the Ortodox Easter.
Martin tells us that the road we are travelling on has been renovated for 3 times in the last 5 years.
“There are too many trucks, more than 3000 per day, with more than 20 tons each.”
He works in a bank, he’s young and he chose to live among his nature rather than abroad.
He also tells us that once the valley was full of jewish families with important stores, but they sold everything and moved to the US before the IIWW.
With a few more rides we get to Medzilaborce and find out something more about the mysterious life of Andy Warhol.
The Poloniny National Park is on the North-Eastern extremity of Slovakia and it is made up of small villages which are quite hard to reach.
Here we’ve been so lucky to meet some special people.
First of all Eric’s mom who gave the pirogi’s recipe to Glorija, then Jan, a 10years old boy who lives in Liverpool, but is here to visit his granpa, and then a lovely afternoon spent with the solitary Jozef, wood sculptor and nature lover who left us saying “you enriched my soul.”
We spend the last Slovakian kilometres in the woods, meet two patrols with the jeep, one wishes us good trip, the other checks our passports.
They’re all so interested in Glorija’s Croatian passport, the two policewomen on the border as well, asking for details about Croatia.
In Ukraine we need to refer to 3 different maps simultaneously and it’s not easy to stay “inside” the Carpathians line, but the green ridge is constantly with us.
A van carrying coffee brings us to the Valley of Volovets, we are ready for the big day!
After a night full of prayers, there’s the sun and outside the little wooden church of Pylypets all the observants
replace their baskets full of food for the lunch on the ground. They put a holy picture between the fruit, open the bottle and light up a candle on the grass. Each family stays behind its basket and wait for the blessing.
Right after, in a few minutes they all get on their way to home, losing theirselves in the green fields full of haycocks.
Happy Easter to you all!